Boston has had its share of grimness in recent years, with the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing and New England particularly hard hit by the national opioid addiction crisis.

Veteran Celtic punk rock group Dropkick Murphys has been synonymous with Boston for its two-decade career, with its biggest hit, the platinum 2006 song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” even referencing the city.

But even the band didn’t realize the effect all of that had on it until it left Boston to record for the first time outside the city.

Holed up for 2 1/2 weeks last spring at a studio near El Paso, Texas, the band found itself ruminating on those subjects as it recorded “11 Short Stories of Pain and Glory,” its first studio album in four years and by far its most serious — a blast of maturity for a band defined by its raucous and rowdy music.

It was a formula for success. “11 Stories,” released Jan. 6, peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s albums chart — the second-highest ever for a Dropkick Murphys disc — and was No. 1 on the Independent, Rock, Vinyl and Internet charts.

In a recent call from Germany, where Dropkick Murphys was touring before it kicks off a U.S. leg with a show at Sands Bethlehem Event Center on Tuesday, bassist Al Barr talked about the new album, the inspiration behind it and the history and future of Dropkick Murphys.

Here’s an edited transcript of the call:

LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: Tell me the story of the new album. What were you looking to do? Did you do anything differently? How do you think it turned out?

AL BARR: “It’s our ninth album and our first recorded outside of Boston. We went to El Paso, Texas, to record it – first time we recorded an album outside of Boston.

“I don’t think we as a band ever have an idea of what we want to do when we head into a studio to record an album.

“Obviously we go into the studio with most of the material buttoned up, but there’s moments that happen only in the studio and we had more of those moments as a result of not being interrupted by people going home – by always being together.

“We were there for about 2 ½ weeks, and in the middle of nowhere, we were 30 miles outside of El Paso, in the middle of a pecan ranch. And we were – it’s like the desert; the Mexican border is literally a mile away or something. So it was a unique experience, and I think it lent itself to a lot of the creativity that went into this record.”

How did you choose El Paso? How did you end up there?

“Well, there’s a great studio that our producer, the last two records, Ted Hutt, had worked at before. And he suggested it and we checked it out, and, you know, we just liked the idea, and we all ended up having an amazing time there.

“So, you know, it’s, like, bunk houses and you’re just kind of sleeping and working all day. There’s several studios, there’s several groups of musicians going in and out of there all the time. But, you know, you take your meals in the main house and then you go back to work, and you work till you’re tired and then you go to sleep and get up and start all over again, you know?

“So you really don’t have those – when I say ‘interruptions,’ you know, you get in your car, you drive home, you go through traffic. You have to build that all up again the next day when you get back in the studio. And we didn’t have to do that in this case, because we’re actually never leaving the bubble, as it were.

“You don’t even have the coming home – you know, I have three children myself, which I love being a father, I think it’s great, it’s great. But again, you end up kind of climbing out of the creative seat and getting into the father seat, if you will. It’s a different mindset, so then you have to find your way back to the creative flow that you may have been kind of vibe-ing on the day before. And then if you interrupt that, you can sometimes lose it.

“So you didn’t have any of that this time.”

Well, let me ask this question: When I listen to the record, there seems to be more of seriousness than I’ve ever heard on a Dropkick Murphys album before.

“Oh yeah?”

Yeah, and I was wondering what‘s behind that? Where did the songs come from? What were you looking to do when you wrote it?

“I don’t know that we ever go into a record with a ‘What are we looking to do,’ you know? You’re making music, and so that’s just kind of … you know, we’ve always written from our own life experiences, and it’s just that in this particular record, it’s what’s going on right now in New England and in Massachusetts, and in New Hampshire where I live.

“And it’s a lot of people dying from opioid overdoses, heroin overdoses, and it’s just crazy, you know? We’ve just lost … so many people have died in the last few years from this crisis. So the record is definitely … there’s an undercurrent of that there. And so maybe that’s some of the seriousness that you might be speaking to.

“But, you know, there’s also the lighthearted of ‘You’re a First Class Loser’ and ‘I Had a Hat.’ There’s plenty of your typical Dropkick Murphys, if you will, kind of stuff that you’re going to get out of us, you know? But yeah, there’s definitely an undercurrent of, you know, the tragedies that we have been directly affected by with this opioid crisis.”

Am I correct that you lost someone to opium addiction?

“Yeah, I … our family lost … I lost my brother-in-law a few years ago to an overdose. So yeah. And that was something that he had not …we were not aware of. You know, he ran a restaurant, he was the day manager/head cook and had been suffering with pain and had been, I think, medicating with pharmaceuticals to deal with that pain. He’d had double knee surgery and after coming through that, I think he got addicted to the highly … strong medications that the doctors put him on. Then, unbeknownst to my sister and the rest of us, he started using heroin and it was for … We were able to kind of gather through the police and his phone and stuff that it had not even been for very long at all.

“But unfortunately, what they’re doing now is they’re cutting heroin with Fentanyl, and, you know, Fentanyl is a thousand times stronger than heroin; it’s what they give you when they put you under in the hospital. And, about five grains of salt, is what it look like, is enough to kill you. That’s how strong this sh-t is.”

Oh, gosh.

“And, you know, that’s what killed him. And that’s what’s killing kids and adults all across the country, but especially in New England. I mean, New Hampshire and a million, three hundred thousand people and we boast the most opioid and heroin overdoses in the country. So that’s just to give you an idea how bad it is where we are.”

Yeah, it’s also bad in Pennsylvania. And being a part of the music community, I see so many people touched with it, it’s just horrific. It’s a daily …

“Well, I mean, we – on the books, and that’s just on the books; God knows how many more have fallen through the cracks and didn’t, weren’t, haven’t been found. Fifty-three thousand people last year lost their lives to drug overdoses. So that’s just to give you an idea, in our country – 53,000!”

That’s amazing.

“Now why that isn’t on the front page of Time magazine, why that isn’t being talked about on a daily basis in every high school across the country is a mystery to me, because it’s the elephant in the room right now.

“But, you know, it’s no mystery, really. Big pharma are stepping over the bodies of our children to cash their checks, you know? They don’t care—the end of the day, the OxyContin people are getting their money, and Oxycodone people. They don’t care.”

I have to agree with you. You also decided to address the Boston Marathon bombing in the song “4.15.13.” Tell me about that.

“I don’t know if ‘addressed’ is the best way to put it. We did a kind of our own homage to the … I mean, obviously, in taking into consideration how recent that tragedy was, we wanted … it wasn’t something that … We had to be very careful in how we wrote about that. We certainly didn’t want to write a song that was, you know – it’s obviously not a song that’s going to be about celebration.

“I guess out muse was more the outpouring of love in the wake of the great tragedy. And that was our inspiration for that song. And that’s what, I think, is really captured in that song. So …”

Yeah, it’s a great song. Tell me about the – you mentioned some of the covers. Tell me about your decision to cover “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” What was behind that song?

“Uh, well that, again, our founding member, Ken Kasey, was coming out of yet another funeral from another opioid crisis and heard that song – we’ve all heard that song our whole lives, you know? It’s been a song we’ve been aware of, but it just kind of struck a nerve – it just kind of hit us in a different way. When Ken brought the song and said ‘We should do this,’ it wasn’t about, you know, European football or anything like that. It was mainly talking about the struggle within and the light at the end of the tunnel, which is kind of perfect, the lyrics in that song kind of encapsulate that.

“Actually, that song was the song that set off the writing process for this record – our covering that song kind of kicked off our …”

Wow. You mentioned earlier about last year being your 20th year together as a band. Tell me what your reaction to that is. I mean, what’s that like, that you’re together 20 years?

“[Laughs] Oh, I mean, it’s kind of hard to believe, in a way, the band’s been doing it this long, and we still seem to have something to say, and people still seem to want to hear what we have to say. So it’s pretty amazing – we’re pretty humbled by that.

“You know, I don’t think when the band started that anybody thought that it was going to be here now. I don’t think anybody, you know, thought that this was where we were gonna be at. But we’re very grateful, obviously to be here.

“And it’s been an amazing 20-plus years and there’s been so much that’s happened in that time, it’s hard to really pinpoint just what are the … there’s been so many amazing things, it’s hardtop kind of go, ‘Wow, this was the thing that was the greatest part of the last 20 years.

“It’s just – to look at it all, to have somebody say, ‘You guys have been a band for 20 years,’ it’s pretty crazy – especially for a band that comes from the genre we come from, punk rock, you know?”

And the new album hits Top 10 on its release. So like you say, there’s still people wanting to listen to the music – a lot of people wanting to listen to the music.

“Yeah, I mean, the way that people listen to music or buy their music these days is so different than it was when I was growing up, so, you know, the geography of the music industry is so different, I don’t even … You know what I mean? It’s very strange to me that people don’t seem to have the attention spans that they did, or the patience for, you know, buying a record and listening to the thing from front to back.

“Now people buy songs, they cherry-pick chapters from your book if you will. So it’s a whole different world, isn’t it? But, you know, I mean having said that it’s great to put out our ninth studio album and have it do on the charts the way it did and, again, to have a fan base that is so loyal and supportive, and we’re very, very lucky.”

Did I correctly read something from Ken that you guys expect to put out another album in 2017?

“Um, yeah, we’re … that’s the plan, you know? Usually when we do a record we have like the first string, if you will, and then we have the B sides and then we have the flushables. And with this record we just had so much what we felt was great material that we knew that we weren’t gonna put it all on the same thing, on the same record. We just felt maybe it would make sense to split it up into two.

“So. I mean, whether it’s late 2017 or early 2018, but that’s the intention, at least. That’s the plan. But we’re on tour right now supporting ’11 Short Stories.’ So whether or not that comes to fruition, that’s the plan. But it’s hard to commit to something like that when you’re on a world tour, the beginnings of a world tour supporting one right now [laughs] to think about the other record coming out.

“You gotta stay focused on what you’re doing.”

Understand, and I believe what you say – to have an album with so many great songs on it, it’s a great product that you have to tour on.

Hey, I have just one more question: I saw you guys at Ardmore Music Hall, when you did the acoustic set with WMMR disc jockey Pierre Robert. And you didn’t in that show play [your hit] ‘Shipping Up to Boston.’ I was wondering – you do still play that in your live shows, yes?

“We do play that in our live set, yeah. Acoustically, ‘Shipping’ doesn’t really translate all the time – although we have done it acoustically before. It’s not that we haven’t. I just think with the – we were very excited about the new songs that we really want to play those for the people, if you will.

“But we still play that song pretty much every night. It’s not like we’re not playing that song.”